"Without her books did Juana grow more wise, As for their loss she studied deep content. Know, then, that in this human school of ours, He only is wise who knows to love his God." At thought of her death, Don Luis Muñoz Venegas, of Granada, wonders that the sun shines, that ships sail, that earth is fair, that all things do not grieve her loss, whose happy soul in its beatitudes enjoys the riches of which death has robbed the world--sweetness, purity, felicity. Fray Juan de Rueda, professor of theology in the college of San Pablo; Licentiate Villalobos of San Ildefonso, and Señor Guerra, fellow of the same college; Advocate Pimienta, of the Royal Audience, and Bachelor Olivas, a presbyter; Syndic Torres, Catedratico or Professor Aviles, Cavalier Ulloa, have all something to say in Spanish or Latin on the death of our poetess. Doctor Aviles imagines the death of Sor Juana to be like that of the rose, which, having acquired in a brief age all its perfection, needed not to live longer. Don Diego Martinez suggests beautifully that the profit which other excellent minds will derive from the posthumous writings of the poetess will be like the clearness which the stars gain by the death of the sun. Mingled with these honest tributes of admiration is much extravagance of comparison; but they prove at least that Sor Juana was regarded by the learned of her day as a woman of astonishing powers. Amid all her studies and labors, we read that Sister Juana was constant in her religious devotions, and faithful to the least rules of her order. But her conscientious spirit, moved by a letter of Bishop Fernandez of Puebla, determined her at length to renounce the exercise of her talents for the strictest and purest ascetism. Hence, one of her Mexican critics is led to say that we have only the echoes of her songs, only the shades of her images, inasmuch as her sex and state, and the reigning scholasticism, were not convenient for the true expression of her thoughts. The noble, ascetic literature of Spain, respecting which it is with reason boasted that the world contains nothing of the kind more valuable, discredits in good part this supposition. Moreover, the recognition of Sor Juana's work and genius was, as we have seen, not inconsiderable. The world is still in its infancy as regards religious ideality, and, spite of the highest evidences, often refuses to believe that thoughts fed from the divine source can fulfil the true poem of life, be it written or acted. What the thoughts of Sor Juana were like in her ordinary religious life we understand partly from a number of daily exercises and meditations which have come down to us. Here are specimens of these compositions: EXERCISE.